TODAY IN HISTORY
TODAY IS WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1, the 152nd day of 2022. There are 213 days left in the year.
TODAY’S HIGHLIGHT IN HISTORY: On this date in 1813, the mortally wounded commander of the USS Chesapeake, Capt. James Lawrence, gave the order “Don’t give up the ship” during a losing battle with the British frigate HMS Shannon in the War of 1812.
In 1533, Anne Boleyn, the second wife of King Henry VIII, was crowned as Queen Consort of England.
In 1792, Kentucky became the 15th state.
In 1796, Tennessee became the 16th state.
In 1812, President James Madison, in a message to Congress, recounted what he called Britain’s “series of acts hostile to the United States as an independent and neutral nation”; Congress ended up declaring war.
In 1916, Louis Brandeis took his seat as an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, the first Jewish American to serve on the nation’s highest bench.
In 1943, a civilian flight from Portugal to England was shot down by Germany during World War II, killing all 17 people aboard, including actor Leslie Howard.
In 1958, Charles de Gaulle became premier of France, marking the beginning of the end of the Fourth Republic.
In 1967, the Beatles album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was released.
In 2009, General Motors filed for Chapter 11, becoming the largest U.S. industrial company to enter bankruptcy protection.
In 2020, police violently broke up a peaceful and legal protest by thousands of people in Lafayette Park across from the White House, using chemical agents, clubs and punches to send protesters fleeing; the protesters had gathered following the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis a week earlier. President Donald Trump, after declaring himself “the president of law and order” and threatening in a Rose Garden speech to deploy the U.S. military, then walked across the empty park to be photographed holding a Bible in front of St. John’s Church, which had been damaged a night earlier in a protest fire. A Minneapolis medical examiner classified George Floyd’s death as homicide, saying his heart stopped as police restrained him and compressed his neck.
TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS: Actor Brian Cox is 76. Rock musician Ronnie Wood and actor Jonathan Pryce are 75. Actors Gemma Craven and John M. Jackson (TV: “JAG,” “NCIS: Los Angeles”) are 72. Blues-rock musician Tom Principato is 70. Country singer Ronnie Dunn is 69. Actors Lisa Hartman Black and Tom Irwin are 66. Singer-musician Alan Wilder is 63. Rock musician Simon Gallup (The Cure) is 62. Actor-comedian Mark Curry is 61. Actor-singer Jason Donovan is 54. Actor Teri Polo and basketball player-turned-coach Tony Bennett are 53. Actor Rick Gomez is 50. Model-actor Heidi Klum is 49. Singer Alanis Morissette is 48. Actor Sarah Wayne Callies is 45. Comedian Link Neal (Rhett & Link) is 44. TV personality Damien Fahey is 42. Americana singer-songwriter Brandi Carlile, actor Johnny Pemberton and actor-writer Amy Schumer are 41.